Whether you reference them as sysadmins or system administrators, the bottom line is that, they are the IT professionals charged with supporting, troubleshooting, and maintaining computer networks and servers. In other words, system administration refers to all the activities performed by a team whose daily tasks is to ensure computer systems in an organisation work as expected to ensure everyone else can maximise on them to achieve productivity.

Depending on an organisation, the sysadmins also play the role of being network technicians and the technical support staff. Anything that has an error that can limit an end-user, is forwarded to the sysadmin to resolve, ensuring they prevent and minimise disruption.

Roles and Qualities of a System Administrator

The nature of the work done in a system administration environment requires advanced level of skills to ensure competency and efficiency. Below are some of the periodical tasks performed by a sysadmin.

1. Monitoring Systems

In any organisation, the system administration department checks and monitors the available systems to ensure they are at maximum performance. The role involves checking logs, memory usage, CPU utilisation, network performance, etc.

The sysadmin utilises different tools to achieve this and even automate such tasks as they are often repetitive, yet vital for an organisation. If they detect any errors, it is up to them to resolve them to ensure an end-user doesn’t get affected by it.

2. Managing Users

Managing users is a task best performed by a system administrator. It includes all things creating user accounts, defining user privileges, allocating resources, modifying user accounts, and deleting user accounts.

In a case of an organisation, access levels are defined by the system administrator as part of enhancing security. When accessing a server, each user will do so based on their access level as defined by the system administrator.

3. Managing Processes and Services

Whether running a Windows or Linux environment, processes are the daily activities initiated to perform different tasks. Starting, stopping, and controlling of these services is part of system administration.

For instance, a service such as web server with Apache is managed from a central point in an organisation by a system administrator. Again, the system administrator can manage what services should start and run depending on the access level of users in the organisation. That way, an administrator will have different running services than a regular user.

4. Implementing Security Measures

Network and device security is implemented by a system administrator. It is their work to ensure they have the correct firewall and rules defined to keep end users safe when working with devices and performing network activities.

Additionally, system administration also involves checking logs for anomalies in the network and on user accounts to lock out intruders and implement confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity in the organisation.

5. Periodical Backups and Disaster Recovery

Using different tools such as Crontab, a system administrator is able to automate backups periodically. A cron job can be created to automatically backup all files and data for every user in an organization.

In the event of data loss, the system administrator handles data recovery using recovery tools available to them to ensure continuity of the processes and activities of an organisation.

6. Technical Support

Whenever other users have difficulty related to anything computer or network, they seek help from the system administrator. Most organisations don’t hire a technical support team.

Instead, they leave the task to a system administrator as a way of cutting down on expenses.

7. Installation and Configuration

A system administrator is responsible for installing software and hardware devices in an organisation. Moreover, any required configuration is their task to handle. They even offer user training in the case of new systems or change of work flow activities.

8. Creating and Maintaining Networks

System administration calls for competency in handling networks. In most organisations, the system administrator is expected to create, implement, and maintain networks. Concepts such as subnets, VLANs, etc are things a system administrator must be comfortable to implement.

The above are a few examples of the roles that a system administrator is expected to perform. These roles will depend on the working environment the system administrator finds himself in. Analysing these roles, it is clear some of the qualities that a system administrator should have.

For instance, to be good at system administration, you must be comfortable working with Linux and Windows processes. A system administrator is expected to be comfortable working with services, processes, virtualization, and servers. Moreover, mastery of networks is also handy.

Besides, the system administrator must be competent with working with firewalls, security tools, antivirus, data recovery, automation tools, and backups.

Tools and Technologies Required for Effective System Administration

So far, we’ve understood who a sysadmin is, their roles, and the expected qualities they should have. Notably, performing their roles requires working with different tools and technologies to achieve productivity and effectiveness. Here, we will talk about some of the tools and technologies they can use.

Network Monitoring and Management Tools

Apart from being competent matters networking, a system administrator can also have several network monitoring and management tools by their side. As most tasks are repetitive, it’s easy to work with tools that help with monitoring network logs, checking for anomalies, etc.

Besides, these tools offer real-time analytics which adds to the efficiency of the sysadmin. They include LogicMonitor, Datadog, and a load balancer such as HAProxy.

Server Management and Automation Tools

Day to day tasks such as creating backups, upgrades, managing process, etc., are best automated. There are several automation tools and scripts that you can use. However, one that stands out is Attune. It is an all-in-one option for anyone looking to up their system administration.

With Attune, you will quickly automate process, run intuitive scripts, automate generating documentation, create custom automation solutions, etc. Attune offers comprehensive multi-server orchestration, ensuring you achieve flexibility. Besides, it is versatile to accommodate enterprise-grade infrastructure. Even your home-network is accommodated. Check it out!

Security and Compliance Tools

Implementing security relies on the security tools and technologies in the organisation. It checks the installed firewalls, defined rules, logging systems, security access measures, and compliance tools.

Whether you opt for hardware options or software applications, there are plenty of options such as Teanable Nessus and Qualys.

Backup and Disaster Recovery Tools

For effective performing of backups and proper data recovery, the right tools must be used. There are several software applications offering these services and its upon a sysadmin to test them to see which works best for their case.

Nonetheless, such tools include Veeam and Barracuda Backup tools.

Collaboration and Documentation Tools

Teamwork in an organisation is achieved using collaboration tools that allow teams to work on projects and access shared resources remotely. Therefore, a system administrator must be comfortable working with remote desktop solutions. Examples of such tools include RemotePC, BeyondTrust, etc.

Additionally, IT documentation is vital in storing critical data systematically. Here, we are talking about tools such as Confluence, IT Glue, etc.

Challenges in the System Administration Industry

System administration has its set of challenges that sysadmins must find ways to deal with to guarantee continuity and productivity.

A report by SolarWinds showed that the majority of IT professionals, including those in the system administration space, mention cybersecurity threats as the key challenge they face. Technology is advancing ways of intruders to break into systems and a sysadmin must remain ahead of the attackers to create robust security measures in an infrastructure.

Ensuring compliance with different data protection regulations is also a challenge. The system administrator must ensure they implement encryption, auditing, access controls, and other mechanisms that safeguard data to keep it confidential and safe.

As organisations scale, system administration faces the challenge of complexity. We are talking things like integrating diverse technologies, optimisation, and compatibility problems. These challenges take time to resolve and are draining for sysadmin. Moreover, they call for new skillset, which means more learning time to adopt.

What Emerging Tech and Trends are in System Administration?

Below are the notable trends in system administration.

Virtualisation

According to VMware, there was an increase in investments being channelled towards virtualisation technologies to enhance remote work. For system administration, more resources are required to implement these new technologies to accommodate remote users in an infrastructure and manage resource utilisation.

Automation and AI

System administration is taking a new shape as better automation tools that harness AI are coming up. We’ve seen more automated tools such as Attune that are doing away with the legacy ways of performing repetitive system administration tasks.

Still, DevOps has played a key role in productivity. A report by Puppet’s State mentioned that organisations are enjoying more productivity when they implement DevOps practices, including in system administration.

Cloud

Even in system administration, cloud has proven more beneficial in handling workloads from a centralised cloud platform. This is making work easier and more convenient for system administrators, especially in allocating and monitoring resource utilisation.

With these examples, we have insights on how system administration keeps changing with advancement in technology. As a system administrator, you must remain updated to stay relevant. Hopefully, this post has given you insights on matters system administration to get you started.